The invention relates to apparatus for transporting and manipulating discrete commodities, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus which can be utilized with advantage for the transport and trimming of edible fungi, such as champignons and other mushrooms. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus of the type disclosed in commonly owned German Pat. No. 39 10 230.
The German patent discloses an apparatus wherein mushrooms, which are grown in beds within a skeleton frame, are transported away by the horizontal reach of an endless chain conveyor which can be moved up and down in front of the beds in order to enable the harvesters to place freshly picked mushrooms into trough-shaped receptacles of the chain conveyor. The receptacles are pivotably mounted on the chain conveyor in pendulum fashion so that they normally tend to assume horizontal positions in which they are supposed to receive and retain harvested mushrooms during transport to an evacuating station where the contents of the receptacles are dumped into a vessel. To this end, the patented apparatus employs non-illustrated tilting means for changing the orientation of successive receptacles at the evacuating station in order to ensure the transfer of the contents of such receptacles into the vessel.